Cyclical Ketogenic Diet (CKD) Plan

Cyclical Ketogenic Diet (CKD) Plan

The Cyclical Ketogenic Diet

By now, if you are reading this article, you have probably been on theStandard Ketogenic Diet for some time. You have been limiting your carbs, increasing your intake of healthy fat, and have obtained a state of ketosis. Beginning to deviate from the Standard Ketogenic Diet (SKD) is not recommended for beginners. If you are new to this low-carb, high-fat diet, it is not recommend to begin to apply any of the process or practices listed below.

The Cyclical Ketogenic Diet (CKD) is a solution to long-term Ketogenic Diet success. It allows the practitioner to break ketosis from time to time, therefore enjoying carbs, while resetting the metabolism. You will often see the CKD in reference to athletes, but cycling out of ketosis is healthy for everyone. If you are an athlete who practices high-intensity workouts, be sure to pay attention to the second part of this article, as it focuses on you.

Cycling Out of Ketosis

Once you have achieved a state of ketosis, you will have increased mental clarity, extra energy, and will be losing weight. Ketosis affects each individual differently, so variations will need to be tested and adapted to your body. There are no proven long term negative-effects of staying in ketosis for long amounts of time, but experts still recommend cycling out of ketosis once in a while. The average time one should spend in a state of ketosis is no longer than 30 days. Some diet practitioners will cycle out weekly, while others chose to remain in ketosis for months at a time. This will all depend on you and your body.

When and Why to Cycle Out of Ketosis

Once your body has become keto adapted, you will be experiencing many positive side effects. After maintaining ketosis for some time, you may notice a stall in your weight loss. When you started the Ketogenic Diet, you reset your metabolism to work in a completely new way. This reset gave your a body a jump-start, and increased your fat-burning ability. If you haven’t changed your daily intake of your calories and macro-nutrients, this could be due to a stall in your metabolism. To give your body a wake-up call, cycling out of ketosis may be a good choice.

Even if your body is responding well to ketosis, many experts and dietitians recommend cycling out of ketosis every 30 days. This will reset your metabolism, and allow your body to restore its store of glycogen. Since your muscles and liver will be depleted of glycogen, the carbohydrates you are ingesting will go straight to refilling them instead of being added to your fat stores. Because of this, your caloric and carbohydrate intake will be much higher than your normal diet. A typical “refeed” or carb-load” will consist of 450-600g of carbohydrates.

Adding Carbs to Cycle Out of Ketosis

It’s important to remember that a cheat day can easily kick you out of ketosis. Once you are out, you will be ingesting large amounts of fat each day, without the fat burning capabilities of ketosis. During a carb cycle, you will still want to be aware of what you are eating, and how those foods affect your body and your metabolism. Ideally, you will be eating complex carbohydrates, with limited fat, sucrose and fructose, and carbs from nutrient rich sources.

To transition out of ketosis, it is recommend to ingest carbs from nutrient rich sources. These include:

Berries

Sweet Potatoes

Carrot or Beet Juice

Don’t just buy a pizza, or jump right into a bowl of pasta. Carbohydrates are tricky, and the more you eat, the harder it is to go back to your ketogenic diet. Just like taking a day off at the gym, you want to take a break, not stopping your healthy journey.

How Long to Stay out of Ketosis

It is recommended to keep your carb cycle to a maximum of 2 days or 48 hours. You can achieve the desired results in as little as 24 hours, but many practitioners like to take an entire weekend for the process. Taking a weekend allows you to participate in social gatherings, and isn’t dictated by the regimented schedule of a work day.

It is important to note that the longer you stay out of ketosis, the harder it will be to re-enter it. 24 hours out of ketosis allows for a quick reset, without having to go through the full process of carbohydrate starvation again.

Resuming your Ketogenic Diet

Re-entering ketosis is as easy as resuming your ketogenic diet. Once you resume your high-fat, low-carb intake, your body will be signaled to re-enter into an aggressive fat burning state. You should notice a high amount of ketones being produced for a few days following your return to the ketogentic diet.

Cyclical Ketogenic Diet For Athletes

The CKD for athletes is not for the average gym-goer, or person who works out regularly. You will be using this diet if you are an athlete who does high-intensity workouts 5 days a week. The purpose of this variation of the ketogenic diet, is to provide athletes with enough energy to complete their high-intensity workouts, while maintaining their ketosis state. This is done by using carbohydrates to power your high intensity work-outs, but to completely deplete your glycerin store every week.

As we’ve discussed, in a CKD you will not follow a low-carb diet every day, like in standard keto diet. Instead, there will be 1-2 days of full carbohydrate intake to fill the muscles with glycogen. The practitioner will then engage in 5-6 days of heavy, high-intensity workout to completely deplete the body of glycogen. It is essential that the high intensity training is maintained every week, or else the body will go out of ketosis due to the high carb consumption. To be successful, you must completely deplete your glycerin stores every week. The CKD is a very challenging type of ketogenic diet, which is why it is not recommended for beginners. If you are an athlete, then CKD is great for you because it will give you the amount of energy needed to sustain your training. Below is a good CKD diet plan to start with:

Day 1: Full Carbohydrates Consumption

70% Carbohydrates (4.5g per pound of lean mass)

15% Protein

15% Fat

Day 2: Full Carbohydrates Consumption

60% Carbohydrates

25% Protein

15% Fat

Day 3: Intense Training

Starting on day three, begin your high-intensity workouts paired with the standard ketogenic diet. You will want to practice intermittent fasting this day, do not eat after 6 pm.

10-20% Carbohydrates

20-30% Protein

60% Fat

Day 4: Intense Training

Do high-intensity training again but this time, begin strict keto diet of less than 5% carbohydrates intake.

Less than 5% Carbohydrates

Day 5- Day 7: Medium Intensity Workout

For the remaining days of the week, perform moderate level of training on an empty stomach. Then, do the standard keto diet but still limit carb consumption to less than 5%.

Calorie Consumption on CKD

The CKD diet plan is like a roller coaster ride of carbohydrates dieting. You will be able to manage this intense diet plan if you have already been practicing ketogenic diet for a year or so. In terms of total calories intake for a CKD diet plan, the calorie consumption per day is much similar to the standard keto diet. It actually depends on your diet goal:

18 calories per pound of body weight for gaining weight

12 calories per pound of body weight for losing weight

15 calories per pound of body weight for maintaining weight

CKD diet plan is really an intense one. If you are doing high-level training, but don’t think that the carb loading is something you want to do, then you might want to try Targeted Ketogenic Diet (TKD). With this type of keto diet, you only eat a lot of carbohydrates immediately before, or after, your work out. Just make sure to really perform high-intensity of training so that you will maintain the ketosis metabolism despite the surge of carbohydrates intake.